Pimping the 350D, Cheaply

So now, I feel like I’m in a totally new photography arena with the DSLR purchase, where I usually ask the questions. Spare me the yabang accusations, I still get the occassional photography-related emails 🙂

WARNING: Skip the rest of the entry if you don’t want to be assaulted with my geeking out.

However, with the limited budget, I’m thinking of making the digital-vintage hybrid. For the price of a decent 50mm Canon lens, I could probaly get:

• A manual-aperture Helios lens (+ the Zenit camera body that usually comes along with it)
• A Leica-mount EOS adapter
• A M42-mount EOS adapter
• Including the shipping and handling costs
• And an extra Russian vintage lens just for the heck of it (the Industar 50-2 would be the neatest lens-cap-looking actual lens to get, though I did get that idea from someone else)

I still have an Industar 61 LTM (macro-heaven!) lens, a rarely-used Mir-1B 37mm lens (sample image; Jay Javier’s), a 50-year old Industar-50 (M39 mount; almost standard on the Zenit 3M), and a Helios 85-210mm lens (sample image; not mine) back home, and I really think I should have it brought here in Shanghai ASAP.

My headache is worsening from the prospect of going back to my long-abandoned photo-geek self, and I hate it that it looks like eBay will be a regular visit again. Argh.

NOTE: But I just love, and can never emphasize enough, the idea of still getting into merging the digital with the performer-but-cheap commie vintage lenses, since most DSLR users would rather bust their savings to get all the new, advanced stuff.